Refuting Creationism - Adapting to Climate Change - 56 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Ancient soils preserved in the rock, known as paleosols, in the Willwood Formation, Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, are rich fossil sites.

Fossil studies of the extinct predator Dissacus praenuntius offer clues as to how ancient animals responded to environmental changes. The ancient omnivore was about the size of a jackal or a coyote.

ДиБгд, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

An Ancient Predator’s Shift in Diet Offers Clues on Surviving Climate Change | Rutgers University

Long before the supposed "Creation Week" — when creationists claim Earth was magicked into existence just a few thousand years ago — our planet was already teeming with life and undergoing dramatic changes. Around 56 million years ago, a mere tick in geological time, Earth experienced a sharp and rapid rise in global temperatures known as the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). This event had a profound effect on ecosystems and the species that lived through it. Many, of course, did not survive, but those that did, adapted to the new, harsher conditions.

One such survivor was an early mammal, Dissacus praenuntius, a member of the now-extinct Mesonychidae order. D. praenuntius was an omnivore that resembled a hyena, but with small hooves on each toe, and like a hyena, it likely lived as an opportunistic scavenger and predator. Now, a team of palaeontologists has revealed how its behaviour changed during the PETM: it began consuming more bone, presumably because its usual prey had become scarce or disappeared altogether. In this respect, D. praenuntius serves as a record of the environmental pressures of the PETM and how some species responded to survive.

It paints a picture of an Earth that is far removed from the idealised, "perfect" planet imagined in creationist mythology — a planet supposedly fine-tuned for life. Instead, the fossil record tells the story of a world that can quickly become hostile, where survival depends not on divine design but on the ability to adapt — or perish.

Creationism Crushed - By Big Biting Dinosaurs

Dinosaur bite illustrations.

Rowe and Rayfield, Current Biology (2025)

Gigantic, meat-eating dinosaurs didn’t all have strong bites | EurekAlert!

Creationists will likely dismiss the recent paper in Current Biology because, as is common in creationist psychology, any scientific evidence contradicting their fundamental beliefs is either ignored, misrepresented, or actively denied—particularly if it suggests their views should be reconsidered.

The study by Andre J. Rowe and Emily J. Rayfield of the University of Bristol (UK) demonstrates that, during the long stretch of Earth’s history predating creationist timelines, giant carnivorous dinosaurs evolved markedly different jaw mechanics to tackle prey—leading to distinct ecological roles. For example, crushers such as Tyrannosaurus rex developed jaws optimised for forceful crushing, akin to crocodilians, whereas slashers - other large theropods such as allosaurids or spinosaurs - developed weaker jaws tailored to ripping and slashing flesh, like modern Komodo dragons [1.1].

This divergence in feeding mechanics underscores a fundamental principle in evolutionary biology: adaptive radiation and allopatric speciation — whereby offspring inheriting intermediate jaw characteristics (neither fully adapted for crushing nor ripping) would likely be at a disadvantage, reducing their reproductive success. Over time, this selective pressure fosters reproductive barriers and drives lineages apart.

Creationism Refuted - What Caused Our Teeth To Shrink Until 690,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Chronologically from left, the molars of human ancestors got longer over millennia to suit a diet of high-carb grassy plants.

Photo credits: Public domain; Don Hitchcock; Fernando Losada Rodríguez (rotated)

Changes in Diet Drove Physical Evolution in Early Humans | Dartmouth

A recent discovery by palaeoanthropologists, led by researchers from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, highlights the stark difference between how a teleological thinker—such as a creationist—imagines evolution works and how it actually proceeds. The study found that the teeth of ancient hominins evolved over a period of some 700,000 years in response to the increasing availability of soft, starchy foods, which began to replace the coarse, fibrous plant matter they had previously consumed.

A teleological thinker—someone who sees purpose and agency in natural processes—would assume that something *caused* the teeth to evolve in order to better process the new food. However, as the theory of evolution predicts, any variation that improves efficiency in food processing or reduces the now-unnecessary cost of growing and maintaining large teeth will be favoured by natural selection. Over evolutionary time, such traits become more common. In the case of archaic hominins, this meant their teeth gradually became smaller.

Teleological thinkers often make the mistake of believing that asking, "Who or what told the teeth they needed to change?" or "How did the teeth know they had to evolve?" is a meaningful challenge to evolutionary theory. To them, it seems reasonable to assume a supernatural intelligence must be involved.

This simplistic view of evolution is actively encouraged by creationist pseudo-scientists such as William A. Dembski and his colleagues at the Discovery Institute, who claim that the genetic information resulting from such optimisation must have been intelligently designed because it is "specified" for a purpose. Of course, at every stage of human evolution, the genetic information that produced a particular tooth shape was necessarily "specified" for that outcome. Dembski never discloses this to his audience, nor does he attempt to correct the teleological bias on which his movement depends.

An interesting aspect of this discovery is that the evolutionary change in this case was driven not so much by environmental change - the starch foods had always been there - as by a change in behaviour - a case of meme-gene co-evolution, using the term 'meme' in the original sense as coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, to mean a unit of cultural inheritance - the analogue of the gene in genetic inheritance.

Creationism Refuted - Scientists Got It Wrong About Coelacanths - But Not About Evolution

One of the authors of the study, Professor Aléssio Datovo, poses next to a coelacanth specimen on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (photo: personal archive)

New examination of fish considered a ‘living fossil’ changes our understanding of vertebrate skull evolution

Here is something that will cause creationists to jump for joy – until they read beyond the headline (if they ever do). Scientists have announced that they were wrong about the evolution of the vertebrate skull, including that of mammals.

However, beneath that headline lie some disappointing facts for creationists:

• The error was uncovered by re-examining the 400-million-year-old skull of a coelacanth.
• The mistake concerns details of how the vertebrate skull evolved – not whether it evolved.
• The paper directly contradicts the common creationist claim that scientists are only permitted to publish research that conforms to the scientific consensus. This study openly challenges the prevailing view.
• The discovery enhances our understanding of how the vertebrate skull evolved from that of ancestral lobe-finned fishes – precisely the kind of evidence creationists would rather didn’t exist.

Still, creationists can enjoy the headline and may even use it to 'prove' to their audience that science is unreliable because scientists sometimes make mistakes. Of course, they’ll likely ignore the fact that the fossil in question is 400 million years old, and gloss over the reality that – unlike religious dogma – science is a process of continuous refinement. Science allows for doubt, re-examination, and re-evaluation. When the evidence changes, scientists change their minds. In contrast, religious dogma is fixed and unchanging, usually despite the evidence, not because of it, hence the widening gap between what creationists are required to believe and what science reveals.

Upon re-examining the cranial musculature of the African coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), the researchers found that only 13% of the previously identified evolutionary muscle innovations in major vertebrate lineages were accurate. They also identified nine new evolutionary transformations related to innovations in feeding and respiration.

The researchers, Professor Aléssio Datovo from the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil and the late David Johnson from the Smithsonian Institution in the United States, who sadly died when the paper was in review, have just published their findings in Science Advances.

Refuting Creationism - What Life was Like In Illinois - 300 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

A Tully Monster (Tullimonstrum gregarium)

Concretions

Recreating Mazon Creek’s 300-million-year-old ecosystem

A major difference between science and religion can be summarised as follows: science embraces reasonable uncertainty, while religion often promotes unreasonable certainty.

In practice, this means science always allows room for doubt—however small—and continually re-examines and reassesses evidence to determine whether a change of understanding is justified. Religion, by contrast, typically seeks reasons not to change its views, no matter how tenuous those reasons may be or how far removed from observable reality.

This essential feature of the scientific method is frequently misrepresented by creationists, who portray science as unreliable precisely because it revises its conclusions in light of new evidence. They contrast this with the supposed ‘eternal truths’ of the Bible, arguing that science books need constant revision while scripture remains unchanging.

One of those supposed eternal truths—about which creationists are not permitted to change their minds—is that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and that all living things were created ex nihilo in their current forms, with no evolutionary ancestry or shared origins. Science, on the other hand, can re-evaluate the evidence from a 300-million-year-old fossil bed in Illinois and conclude that the original interpretation underestimated the complexity of the ancient ecosystem that once existed there.

A prime example of such a scientific reassessment has recently been published—open access—in the journal Paleobiology. The study was conducted by a team of palaeontologists from the University of Missouri’s College of Arts and Science, in collaboration with Gordon Baird of the Department of Geology & Environmental Sciences at the State University of New York (SUNY), Fredonia.

The work is based on a comprehensive reassessment of the rich fossil deposits from the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte in Illinois, which, during the Carboniferous Period (~300 million years ago), was part of a vast area of tropical swamps, deltas, and shallow seas. These habitats were shaped by rising sea levels that inundated earlier coal-forming wetlands.

Creationism In Crisis - A 145-Million-Year-Old Fossil Early Mammal From Dorset, England

Imaginative reconstruction of Novaculadon mirabilis. Likely this animal would have been a little larger than a mouse.

Picture credit: Hamzah Imran.

(L-R) Dr Roy Smith and University of Portsmouth student Ben Weston by the flint bed in Durlston Bay near Swanage, which is the layer of rock which the mammal fossil came out of.

Credit: Ben Weston.

New species of tiny Cretaceous mammal discovered by University of Portsmouth student | University of Portsmouth

When someone grows up being threatened with divine punishment for merely entertaining doubts about the literal truth of the Bible, it's hardly surprising that real-world evidence struggles to break through the psychological defences they've built to protect themselves. This phenomenon is what atheist author and philosopher, Professor Peter Boghossian refers to as doxastic closure — a mental state in which contrary ideas are shut out before they can even be considered.

Former young-Earth creationist and now science advocate and geologist Glenn Morton once described it as like having a “gatekeeper demon” perched on the edge of your consciousness—filtering out any facts or logical arguments that challenge creationist beliefs, while admitting only those misrepresentations of science that appear to support them.

In this mindset, inconvenient realities — such as the discovery of a 145-million-year-old fossil of an early mammal — are unlikely to dent the conviction that the Earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old, and that all animals were created in a single supernatural event. In this view, evolution is simply an illusion, no matter how well the evidence supports it.

Even so, for any creationist with the courage and intellectual honesty to read this far, the story of that inconvenient little fossil is well worth exploring. It was discovered by a palaeontology student from the University of Portsmouth, along the Dorset coast of England, and is the subject of a recent paper in Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

This find marks the first discovery of a multituberculate jaw at Swanage since Victorian times. Its distinct size and shape confirmed it as a completely new species.

Refuting Creationism - North America's Oldest Pterosaur - From 200 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

An artist’s reconstruction of the fossilized landscape, plants and animals found preserved in a remote bonebed of Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park

Illustration by Brian Engh

Reconstruction of life in Arizona, 200 million years ago.

AI generated image (ChatGPT4o)

A Bone Bed From the Dawn of the Dinosaurs Has Revealed the Oldest Known Pterosaur Found in North America

Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park is a place that many creationists might prefer to ignore—or misrepresent. It offers a vivid record of how life changed during the Triassic Period, between 252 and 201 million years ago. In other words, it documents the history of life in what is now Arizona during the vast stretch of time that predates the so-called “Creation Week,” as described in Bible-based creationist mythology.

In addition to the petrified remains of ancient conifers, the site preserves fossils of long-extinct crocodile-like reptiles and some of the earliest dinosaurs known from North America. Now, a new study of a fossil-rich bone bed from the late Triassic—around 09 million years ago—has revealed new insights into stream ecosystems of that time, including the discovery of the largest pterosaur yet found in North America.

Refuting Creationism - The Cambrian 'Explosion' Just Blew Up In Creationists' Faces

Cambrian explosion may have occurred much earlier than previously thought - Current events - University of Barcelona

Creationists have long misrepresented the so-called "Cambrian Explosion" as vindication of their belief in the spontaneous creation of complex multicellular life ex nihilo — as though organisms simply appeared, fully formed, without precursors. They portray it as an instantaneous event that defies evolutionary explanation, and falsely claim that it presents an insurmountable problem for evolutionary biology. In doing so, they even misquote the late Stephen Jay Gould, asserting that he admitted Darwinian evolution could not account for it and so invented the concept of "punctuated equilibrium" to paper over the cracks.

In a particularly striking display of cognitive dissonance, this version of events — supposedly occurring half a billion years ago — is frequently cited by the same creationists who insist the Earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old.

As is so often the case with creationist arguments, these claims are simply wrong. The Cambrian Explosion was not an instantaneous event, but a prolonged evolutionary process unfolding over some 10 million years, with evidence showing a transition from the static Ediacaran biota to the more mobile, complex organisms of the Cambrian. Gould, far from being an opponent of evolutionary theory, remained a staunch evolutionary biologist throughout his career. His now largely outdated concept of punctuated equilibrium was never an alternative to evolution, but rather an attempt to explain the appearance of abrupt change in the fossil record — a perception largely due to the compression of deep time in the geological column. When properly scaled, the fossil record easily accommodates the gradual evolution of complex traits.

Trace fossils are an indicator of the palaeoecological conditions in which the organism that generated them lived.

Now, new research by Olmo Miguez Salas of the University of Barcelona and Zekun Wang of the Natural History Museum in London has uncovered compelling evidence that pushes the roots of the Cambrian Explosion even further back in time. Their findings suggest that signs of mobility and bilateral body plans were already emerging within the Ediacaran biota. This extends the evolutionary runway leading into the Cambrian, giving more time for the radiation of novel body plans and for the development of evolutionary arms races—such as the emergence of predation, defence mechanisms, and sensory adaptations.

Their results are published in the journal Geology (paper here) and summarised in a news release from the University of Barcelona.

Refuting Creationism - Yes, It's Another Of Those 'Non-Exitent' Transitional Fossils!

Reconstruction of the Burgess Shale concilitergan Helmetia expansa.

Artwork by Marianne Collins.

Holotype of Helmetia expansa USNM 83952, dorsal view. Cross polarized light.

Losso, S. R., Caron, J. B., & Ortega-Hernández, J. (2025).

Ancient fossil sheds big light on evolution mystery: solving a 100-year arthropod mystery | Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

A fundamental problem with creationism is that it depends on wilfully ignoring the vast and ever-growing body of contrary evidence. The intellectual dishonesty required to sustain this belief system makes its adherents the subject of ridicule—not just among scientists, but even among many fellow theists. Its prominent proponents, often elevated to near-prophetic status by their followers, are notorious for misrepresenting or outright lying about scientific findings. Unsurprisingly, they are treated with contempt by the scientific community.

One of the more blatantly counterfactual claims in the creationist repertoire is the assertion that there are no transitional fossils, and no evidence supporting the evolution of species from common ancestors. This denialism is essential to preserve belief in the spontaneous, magical creation of all species a few thousand years ago, without any ancestral lineage.

Accordingly, the creationist industry will need to deploy its usual strategies of misdirection and denial in response to a fascinating Cambrian stem arthropod, first discovered in 1918 in the Burgess Shale of Canada. Initially described from a single specimen, this enigmatic fossil has now been thoroughly reclassified thanks to the work of a team of Harvard researchers led by Dr Sarah Losso, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Their analysis, based on 36 newly examined specimens, sheds significant light on early arthropod evolution.

Their findings are detailed in an open-access paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, and summarised in a Harvard University news article.

Creationism Refuted - Fossil Euarthropod - From 444 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'!

Keurbos susanae, close-up of segments

Gabbott, S.E., et al. (2025)

Keurbos susanae, close-up of segments

Gabbott, S.E., et al. (2025)

Marine fossil found in South Africa is one of a kind, thanks to unusual preservation

In the face of overwhelming evidence contradicting the creationist view of reality, it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that such beliefs are rooted in a deep-seated psychological need—one that drives wilful ignorance and a denial of the observable world.

Consider, for example, the mountain of data showing that Earth is not a few thousand years old, nor was life magically created in its present form within days. Instead, the planet is over four billion years old, and the diversity of life we see today is the product of a long, gradual evolutionary process, shaped by environmental change and punctuated by countless extinctions.

One small yet compelling piece of that vast evolutionary puzzle comes in the form of an exquisitely preserved, 444-million-year-old fossil, discovered some 25 years ago in a South African quarry. Only recently has it been identified as a stem-group arthropod by Professor Sarah Gabbott of the University of Leicester. She outlines her findings in an article for The Conversation and a detailed research paper published in *Papers in Palaeontology.

Professor Gabbott's article in The Conversation is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Creationism Refuted - Exquisite Fossils From 226 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

The Karoo Basin is a rich source of fossils for the Permian Period of life.

Image © WOLF AVNI/Shutterstock

Other life of this time included the lizard-like ancestors of tortoises, large amphibians that lurked like crocodiles just below the water surface, and forests dominated by a tree called Glossopteris with an understorey of spore-producing plants such as mosses, ferns and horsetails.

Photo: PEXELS

Exquisite new fossils from South Africa offer a glimpse into a thriving ecosystem 266 million years ago

In the realm of palaeontology, few discoveries are as illuminating as those that offer a window into ecosystems long vanished. A recent study published in The Conversation by palaeontologist Rosemary Prevec of Rhodes University, South Africa, unveils such a discovery: an exquisitely preserved fossil site in South Africa's Northern Cape province, dating back 266 million years to the middle Permian period. This site reveals a thriving ecosystem teeming with diverse plant life and a myriad of insect species, providing an unprecedented glimpse into pre-dinosaur terrestrial life.[1]

The significance of this find extends beyond its immediate scientific value; it directly challenges fundamental creationist assertions. By presenting concrete evidence of complex ecosystems existing millions of years before the advent of humans, it undermines the young-Earth creationist timeline that posits a 6,000 to 10,000-year-old Earth. The detailed stratigraphy and radiometric dating techniques employed corroborate the Earth's ancient history, aligning with the broader scientific consensus on geological and biological evolution.

Moreover, the discovery underscores the continuity and gradual progression of life forms, countering the notion of sudden creation. The intricate details preserved in these fossils—ranging from delicate insect wings to diverse plant structures—highlight the complexity and diversity of life well before the emergence of humans. Such findings reinforce the evolutionary narrative of life's development over hundreds of millions of years, offering tangible evidence against creationist models that reject evolutionary theory.

Rosemary Prevec's article in The Conversation is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Creationism Refuted - New Finding Shows That Reptiles Were Around At Least 350 million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Early amniote reconstruction.

Martin Ambrozik.

Fossil tracks revise march of early life on Earth – News

In a paper that creationists will no doubt feel compelled to ignore, misrepresent, or dismiss, scientists report the discovery of reptile tracks in 350-million-year-old Australian rocks. This remarkable find pushes back the earliest known trace of reptiles by some 40 million years.

For mainstream science, this discovery provides further clarification of the timeline for the evolution of terrestrial tetrapods. However, for creationists—who continue to compress Earth's 3.8-billion-year history into a mere 6,000 to 10,000 years in order to preserve a literal interpretation of Genesis—it presents yet another challenge to their beliefs.

It is the kind of evidence that science routinely uncovers, forcing creationists into ever more creative contortions to avoid confronting the reality of evolution.

The discovery was made by Professor John Long of Flinders University and colleagues, who have detailed their findings and their significance in a Flinders University press release. Additionally, Professor Long, together with Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki and Professor Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University, Sweden, has published an open-access article discussing the research in The Conversation.

Their article in The Conversation is reproduced here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Refuting Creationism - Why Gaps In The Fossil Record Are To Be Expected, Naturally

Cretaceous fossil shrimp from Jbel Oum Tkout, Morocco
registered at the Museum d’histoire naturelle de Marrakech.

© Sinéad Lynch - UNIL

Why did some ancient animals fossilize while others vanished?

One of creationism’s favourite fallacies is the claim that gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution, based on a misrepresentation of something Charles Darwin wrote. According to this argument, Darwin supposedly insisted there should be a complete and continuous series of transitional fossils and admitted that any gaps would be fatal to his theory.

As with many creationist arguments, this is a distortion of both Darwin’s actual words and how science works. It reflects a peculiar misunderstanding of science as a belief system centred on the writings of historical figures — Darwin, in this case, cast as the ‘prophet’ of ‘evolutionism’. The implication is that by discrediting Darwin personally, or selectively quoting his early uncertainties, one can somehow bring down an entire field of modern science built on nearly two centuries of accumulating evidence.

The tactic ignores the fact that Darwin's style was to introduce the reader to a seemingly unaswerable problem, or potential difficulty for his theory, before explaining how his theory of evolution by natural selection provided an answer.

But why would any reasonable person expect the fossil record to preserve every generation of every species, in every habitat, across hundreds of millions of years—and for those remains to be conveniently accessible to palaeontologists today? The idea that scientists expect such completeness betrays a deep scientific illiteracy. Fossilisation is an exceptionally rare process requiring very specific conditions. There are many reasons why an organism is unlikely to fossilise, and relatively few that make fossilisation even possible.

Refuting Creationism - More Pterrible News For Creationists As Scientists Track The Evolution of Terrestrial Pterosaurs

Quetzalcoatlus northropi (artist's impression)

Witton MP, Naish D (2008),
CC BY 3.0, Link

Ptero Firma: footprints pinpoint when ancient flying reptiles conquered the ground | News | University of Leicester

False-colour depth map revealing the shape and pressure of each step, showing that these creatures bore more weight on their hands while walking.

Most people—apart, perhaps, from creationists who deny such creatures ever existed—are aware that a group of reptiles evolved the ability to fly and took to the skies long before birds and bats emerged to exploit this medium.

What many people don’t know, however, is that some members of this group, including larger species, later returned to land and adopted a coastal wading lifestyle. We know this because their fossilised tracks have been found preserved in what was once coastal mud.

Young Earth creationists routinely point to geological formations derived from coastal or estuarine mud as 'evidence' of a supposed global flood, yet they consistently fail to explain how such a flood could have preserved so many footprints—left by waders such as ducks, geese, redshanks, and sandpipers—as well as delicate raindrop impressions. Even harder to explain is the evidence showing that these footprints were made at different times, spanning several million years, up until the mass extinction caused by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago.

And disconcertingly for creationists, a team of palaeontologists led by Robert Smyth, a doctoral researcher in the Centre for Palaeobiology and Biosphere Evolution (School of Geography, Geology and the Environment) at the University of Leicester, has demonstrated that these fossil footprints can be used to trace the evolutionary history of the pterosaurs that made them.

Refuting Creationism - Giant Fast-Running Croccodiles In the Caribbean - 11 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Sebecids dominated South American landscapes for millions of years, but scientists were perplexed when their fossils started appearing in the Caribbean, too.

Florida Museum image by Jorge Machuky.

Giant croclike carnivore fossils found in the Caribbean – Research News

Six million years before biblical literalist creationists assert Earth and all living creatures were created ex nihilo, giant long-legged, crocodile-like predators known as sebecids were hunting their prey on Caribbean islands. Remarkably, these creatures persisted long after similar species had vanished from South America, where sebecids had become apex predators following the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Although sebecids went extinct on mainland South America about 11 million years ago, new evidence from Caribbean fossil records shows they survived considerably longer on islands, continuing as apex predators. This finding comes from recent research conducted by a team of palaeontologists from the Florida Museum, who have been compiling evidence over the past three decades. The team's detailed findings have now been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Further insights and context are available in an accompanying Florida Museum news article.

Refuting Creationism - A 'Hell Ant' For The Science Deniers

Vulcanidris cratensis (Scale bar, 2 mm.)

Figure 2 Photographs depicting details of Vulcanidris cratensis gen. et sp. nov. Holotype (MZSP-CRA-0002).

• (A) Head and anterior portion of mesosoma. Scale bar, 1 mm.
• (B) Mesosoma. Scale bar, 1 mm.
• (C) Left forewing. Scale bar, 1 mm.
• (D) Right forewing. Scale bar, 1 mm.
• (E) Detail of head. Scale bar, 0.5 mm.
• (F) Detail of petiole. Scale bar, 0.5 mm.
• (G) Metasoma. Scale bar, 1 mm. Arrowheads indicate key characters mentioned in the text.

Ancient ‘Hell Ant’ Discovery Is Also The Oldest Ant Fossil Ever Unearthed | StudyFinds

Most dedicated creationist advocates will already be familiar with the mental gymnastics required to assert that a coelacanth allegedly remaining unchanged for tens of millions of years somehow disproves evolution, therefore life must have been magically created ex nihilo just a few thousand years ago.

Now they have a new specimen to test their contortions even further: a beautifully preserved 113-million-year-old ant fossil from Brazil—the oldest ant fossil discovered to date. Remarkably, by 113 million years ago, this now-extinct species was already highly specialised as a predator, equipped with distinctive scythe-like mandibles. These formidable features have earned it the informal nickname "hell ant."

The exquisitely preserved limestone fossil clearly reveals detailed wings and wing veins, characteristic of the insect order Hymenoptera, confirming ants' close evolutionary relationship with wasps and bees. Since wings are typically absent in worker ants, the presence of fully developed wings strongly suggests that this specimen represents a reproductive female—likely a queen.

This remarkable ant fossil was identified within a collection originating from the Crato Formation in northern Brazil, housed in the Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo. The Crato limestone was deposited in a shallow lake environment approximately 113 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period, at a time when the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana had not yet fully separated into what would become modern-day Africa and South America.

Refuting Creationism - Filling The Gaps and Shrinking That Ever-Shrinking Little God

Helmetia expansa

Holotype of Helmetia expansa USNM 83952, dorsal view.

Jean-Bernard Caron and Sarah Losso.

Ancient fossil sheds big light on evolution mystery: solving a 100-year arthropod mystery | Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Creationist apologetics often involve attributing phenomena that science cannot yet explain to divine intervention, relying on the assumption that gaps in scientific knowledge serve as evidence for the existence of a deity. This approach frequently employs the false dichotomy fallacy, suggesting that if science lacks an explanation, then "God did it" by default. Such reasoning does not establish the existence of a god capable of addressing these gaps; instead, it often depends on the cultural biases of the audience to support this conclusion.

However, science continually seeks to fill these gaps with evidence-based explanations. A recent example is the formal description of the Cambrian fossil Helmetia expansa, which provides insights into arthropod evolution during the Cambrian Period. This period is often mischaracterized by creationist narratives as a time when multiple distinct body plans appeared suddenly without ancestral forms, purportedly indicating a single act of creation.

The study, published in the *Journal of Systematic Palaeontology* by Professor Sarah R. Losso and Javier Ortega-Hernández of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, along with Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum's Department of Natural History (Palaeobiology Section) in Toronto, Canada, offers a comprehensive analysis of Helmetia expansa. Their research reveals that Helmetia expansa is an arthropod related to trilobites, shedding light on the evolutionary diversification of this group during the Cambrian. This finding provides evidence of gradual evolutionary processes, countering claims of abrupt appearance without ancestral lineage.

The study is further explained in a press release from Harvard University, which details how this research resolves a 100-year-old mystery surrounding this Cambrian arthropod.

Refuting Creationism - How Large Herds Of Rhino Roamed North America - 12 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

UC researchers discovered that prehistoric rhinos like these that shared a waterhole 12 million years ago lived in enormous herds.

Photo/John Haxby/The University of Nebraska State Museum

Ash from the eruption of a volcano in Yellowstone preserved more than 100 specimens of a prehistoric rhino at Nebraska's Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park.

Photo/John Haxby/The University of Nebraska State Museum

UC study finds evidence that prehistoric rhinos lived in huge herds | University of Cincinnati

Recent research has presented yet another problem for young-Earth creationism, which asserts that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and that all existing species were created simultaneously without ancestors.

A study conducted by paleontologists from the University of Cincinnati provides compelling evidence that large herds of the extinct rhinoceros species, Teleoceras major, inhabited North America approximately 12 million years before creationism's mythical 'Creation Week'.

This conclusion is derived from isotopic analyses performed on fossils of these rhinos, which were preserved in volcanic ash at the Ashfall Fossil Beds in Nebraska. The fossils represent individuals that perished together at a waterhole, suggesting herd behavior. The study, titled "Enamel carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotopes reveal limited mobility in an extinct rhinoceros at Ashfall Fossil Beds, Nebraska, USA," was published in the journal Scientific Reports on April 4, 2025.

The University of Cincinnati further elaborated on these findings in a news release by Michael Miller, highlighting the evidence that prehistoric rhinos lived in substantial herds.

Refuting Creationism - A Exceptionally Detailed Fossil - From 440 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

The fossil Keurbos susanae - or Sue - in the rock.

New species revealed after 25 years of study on ‘inside out’ fossil – and named after discoverer’s mum | News | University of Leicester

A major problem for creationists who cling to the delusion that Earth was magically created only 6,000 to 10,000 years ago is that this timescale leaves approximately 99.9975% of Earth's actual history unaccounted for. Consequently, there is an overwhelming abundance of evidence contradicting their beliefs. To maintain their position, creationists are forced to rely on increasingly elaborate mental gymnastics to dismiss the clear indications of an ancient Earth within an even older Universe—evidence consistently revealed and verified by multiple scientific disciplines, including palaeontology and geology.

Unintelligent Design - Vestigial 'Fossil' Ear Muscles Still Try to Function

Muscles of the head

AI-generated image (with AI spelling)

Muscles of the ear

Image by BioDigital, edited by Lecturio

‘A neural fossil’: human ears try to move when listening, scientists say | Biology | The Guardian

In my book, The Body Of Evidence: How the Human Body Refutes Intelligent Design I list very many examples of the sort of design only a fool would produce - examples of sub-optimal compromises in structures and processes that could have been less error-prone and more efficient in terms of resource use or function.

These also included vestigial structures and system that still exist, sometime causing problems such as appendicitis when the functionless appendix becomes infected, and the wasted metabolism in making all the tiny hairs on your body stand up in cold weather using the tiny arrector pili muscles and the autonomic nerves that supply them.

Now we have another example, involving the superior and posterior auricular muscles that once moved the ears in a remote simian ancestor, but now only serve as party tricks for the few of us that can wiggle our ears.